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Kakimori Frost fountain pens & rollerballs
Here's an easy recommendation for virtually everyone in your life. KAKIMORI FROST ($52+) is a brand-new series of elegant, modern pens.
Kakimori enlisted Makoto Koizumi, a world-famous industrial designer, to create the unique look and feel of Frost pens.
These pens are sold empty, allowing you to choose any color of bottled fountain pen ink to suit your recipient's unique personality.
Fabriano Venezia: write, draw, paint & sketch in one notebook
FABRIANO VENEZIA BOOK ($20) is our best-selling paper product of 2024 because it can do almost anything.
The Italian-made mixed media paper in this book works with pens, pencils, watercolors, light-body acrylics, inks, pastels, markers, and many more media.
Venezia Book is thread-bound and cloth-covered, so it looks as special on the outside as it really is on the inside.
Uni Watercolor Pencils
These are our favorite watercolor pencils, made with lots of pigment and sheathed in real incense cedar. Unlike lesser watercolor pencils, these re-activate quickly and blend easily.
Uni Watercolor Pencils are available individually, but for gift season, we definitely recommend one of the sets. Starting at less than $30, these handsome tins are packed with pigmented pencils — and each one comes with a brush.
Optimist Mixable Color — Made Here in St. Louis
In many ways, Optimist is a traditional pigment ink. It's made with shellac, like all the old-fashioned waterproof inks that our parents and grandparents used.
But we crafted the Optimist formula with purer, more permanent pigments. That's why it makes clean mixtures and won't fade when displayed over long periods. Our ink has the permanence and brilliance that artists demand.
Each batch of Optimist is milled here in St. Louis, in the same building where we pack and ship your order. So our OPTIMIST CMYK+ SET OF 6 ($70) is a truly unique gift—direct from its birthplace.
Affordable Watercolors from the Van Gogh Museum
Impressively affordable at $38.95, this stylish little watercolor set offers everything a beginning painter needs to get started (except paper!)
Royal Talens, the Netherlands' fine art manufacturer, made this set in partnership with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It includes 12 colors drawn from Van Gogh's "Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat," a masterwork that's famous for its intense and contrasting hues.
Teranishi Make-Your-Own-Pen Kits & Antique Inks
With Teranishi's empty glass marker and empty felt-tip pen kits, you can make your own pens from any fountain pen ink! It's a very pleasing process, too— just saturate the sponge in your favorite ink; watch it soak into the fibers; put together the pen and start writing.
These kits (grab a couple so they can make different colors) make a perfect gift when combined with Teranishi's Taisho Roman Fountain Pen Ink. Each one of these deep, rich inks comes in a glass bottle and a gorgeous gift box.
A reliable, refillable rollerball pen for every day
For day-in, day-out use in our St. Louis HQ, no writing instrument gets more mileage than our rollerball pens. Rollerballs are satisfyingly smooth—a requirement for the pen-obsessed folks in our office—but they're also incredibly reliable and easy to use.
That's why we always recommend a nice, refillable rollerball as a holiday gift for anyone on your list. These dependable pens will be there, ready to write, no matter the situation.
Kakimori Brass & Stainless Nibs — the ultimate tools for sketching
We've been honored to stock Kakimori's unique writing and drawing tools since nearly the very beginning. Based in Tokyo, this small manufacturer does everything right — immaculate design, strict quality control, excellent after-purchase service, and outstanding functionality.
Kakimori's most famous pen, talked about all around the world, is the Metal Nib. This one-of-a-kind, cone-shaped dip pen can make marks from 0.5 mm to 1 cm, all with a flick of the wrist.
Hahnemühle 100% Cotton Watercolor Notebooks
Watercolorists have asked for this particular type of notebook ever since we first opened in 2015, and a couple years ago Hahnemühle made it a reality.
It's 100% cotton, which is essential for top-quality watercolor paper but rare in notebooks. It's hardcover, with an elastic closure, but it opens completely flat, so you can paint panoramas.
Seems simple, but that combination of features doesn't exist anywhere else. Painters absolutely love this notebook.
Wildcard Pick: Japanese Calligraphy Pencils
Here's a fun add-on for any of the creative gifts in our shop.
Japanese calligraphy pencils are an unusual instrument, rarely seen in the United States (unless you work at St. Louis Art Supply, in which case you see them all the time.)
These pencils — starting under $2 — have absurdly wide and soft cores, so they almost feel like brush pens. They're designed for Japanese students to practice their lettering. We love them as sketching and calligraphy tools.
